Report: AEW Dynamite renewed until 2023, second show coming

AEW Dynamite has been renewed through 2023, as AEW continues their partnership with TNT.

The partnership that saw wrestling return to Turner networks almost 19 years after the death of WCW will continue, as AEW looks to build upon what they have done in the last three months.

Despite what detractors might say, AEW Dynamite has been a big success for AEW. The show started with 1.4 million viewers for its debut episode, with a 0.68 rating (the rating of the show is determined by the 18-49 demo).

While there were a few weeks where they traded total viewership back and forth with NXT, AEW only lost in the rating once to NXT (on Dec. 18, 2019).

Time Warner and AEW announced the new television deal today, and the statement concerning it also indicated something very interesting: A second TV show for AEW.

TNT indicated in the press release that AEW is consistently a top 20 show in the unscripted category and averaged 1.2 million viewers in the first three months, with 654,000 viewers in the 18-49 demo with live +7 day viewing, indicating that they have lost almost none of their viewership since the debut episode if you take into account DVR viewing.

The Wrestling Observer reported that the deal to extend Dynamite for an additional 4 years is worth $175 million, with an option for TNT to renew in 2024 at a significantly higher price, should they choose to do so. This means that the deal is roughly $45 million a year, and would make the possibility that AEW would be profitable within the next year or so more than possible.

Analysis

This is obviously very good news for AEW, as it shows the confidence that TNT has in the product, and is a great indicator of partnership growing. One of the things that stood out in this press release was the promise of a second series on TNT.

This raises a lot of questions about what that second show will be. The Wrestling Observer noted in their report that it would be an additional hour of television on top of what AEW is already doing, and it may air on TNT or another Turner property, such as TBS. It will not effect AEW Dark, which will continue to air on YouTube for free, but would be an additional show taped on Wednesday nights.

At the time of writing, we have no idea what that is going to look like, but given the nature of the press release, I don’t think we will have to wait for too long to find out.

The second thing to be noted in the press release was the usage of the DVR Live +7 Day viewing numbers. Those numbers show that just over half of the audience is in the 18-49 demo, which is an exceptionally high number.

The problem, however, is that advertisers value live overnight viewership far more. This means that AEW needs to work on getting the majority of those 18-49 viewers to watch live, rather than DVRing the show.

AEW’s numbers have been good (despite what the contrarians will say, as they often don’t actually understand ratings and how they work), but one weakness in their numbers has shown occasionally:some weeks they have a hard time getting the majority of that demo to watch live.

With that being said, all the naysayers are clearly wrong, as TNT is very happy with Dynamite and wanted to continue their partnership for the next 4 years. This is nothing but good news for wrestling fans and for wrestlers themselves, as the more options for wrestlers to work, the better.

This deal is a significant financial deal for AEW, and shows that the company has legs, as it has done something that no company that has tried to expand nationally has done since WCW: have a surefire path to being profitable. While others tried (like TNA), AEW is the only one to succeed in this front, which is a testament to their success and is good news for wrestling fans everywhere.